Habla, Jebara – Children's Gate, Kafrait Te'enim Crossing, Thur. 28.3.13 morning
Translation: Suzanne O.
Habla
6:50 a.m.
The gate is open; there are about 30 people in the queue as well as cars and carts. The checks take place slowly. A man is sent back and his ID card is returned to him. We hear from afar "I went to the DCO and it didn't help". Later he brings some kind of boss who tries to talk to the soldiers, but to no avail.
Many people leave on bicycles, also leaving are a tractor with a trailer, a horse and cart and cars.
7:15 a.m.
A bus carrying girls arrives, the driver goes in to be checked, returns 8 minutes later. Now a minibus with boys arrives, the driver is checked immediately. A pickup truck full of plants leaves, a flock of sheep leave for pasture.
We monitored a labourer: it took 25 minutes from the moment he arrived until he left.
We continued on with Nadim and passed by Jayus. At 7:50 we stopped near FalAmiah Gate. The gate is open but no one is to be seen. All around the fields of wild oregano scent the air. We stopped for coffee in the village of Gamal and chatted with the owner. He told us that most of the villagers work in Israel because they are unable to make a living from agriculture.
8:45 a.m.
We arrived at the Children's Gate at Gibara, Gate No. 753, via the village of Sur Va-Ras. We asked permission to cross. The soldiers immediately took our ID cards and went to telephone. Meanwhile about 8 soldiers, most of them religious, started to interrogate us. They don't understand why we call the current situation occupation and asked again and again if we had read the Bible. The discussion was comparable to a conversation with the deaf. One soldier told us that Jebara is going to become part of Territory A of Palestine. Of course we were not permitted to cross and, after they held our documents for a while, we left in the direction of Kafrait/Te'enim Crossing. We stopped in Shufa and saw the concrete blocks which had, in the past, blocked the crossing from Shufa to Izbet Shufa. On our arrival at Te'enim Crossing we saw that the Gate to Jebara from Road 557 has been abandoned, it is now surrounded by a fence.